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When Economies Decline, Social Volatility Rises

August 15, 2011 — sbbcentcom

For more than two years the question of sovereign debt has been festering as major economies struggle to nurse economies back to healthy growth levels. As first there was Greece, Dubai and others. Now, the list has grown r

Now the leading economies, with their backs against the wall, have launched ever deeper austerity measures, which now threaten to open the floodgates of pent-up social anxiety of sorts. The most recent manifestations, social unrest, (In Europe and the Middle East) appear to be spreading. Although many factors are contributing to these events, the underlying factors appear to be constant. High unemployment, as well as high inflation act as accelerant, fueling highly volatile conditions.

Some obvious questions that I asked myself more and more: what happens if the current sovereign debt problems continue to spread? What impacts would these events have on the protection of people, assets and reputation for public and private industry? For the untrained in global economics it’s difficult to make sense of the wild gyrations we’re experiencing and that are only getting more complex. To the extent that only a handful of people can understand the magnitude of the global economic crisis. We’re left with a partial picture of potential scenarios over the horizon; which we must draw upon to design strategic response. Therein lies an important takeaway, we should question all of our assumptions and create contingencies for the most likely scenarios.